Yankauer suckers used for suctioning fluids such as blood or saline solution, during surgical, dental, and other medical applications have enjoyed widespread commercial success. Likewise, syringe and bulb type irrigators used for dispensing saline solution or other irrigation or antiseptic fluids during surgery, dental procedures, and other medical applications have enjoyed widespread commercial success.
In the past, many companies and individuals have attempted to develop a single tool or device that is not only capable of providing suction but which also is capable of providing irrigation. Very few, if any, have enjoyed any kind of commercial success because their designs are complicated, unduly expensive, or are ergonomically unwieldy. Additionally, these attempts yielded devices that are aesthetically, ergonomically and/or functionally quite undesirably different than Yankauer suckers and syringe/bulb irrigators used for suction and/or irrigation in a typical surgical and/or dental suite. This is highly relevant as many doctors, surgeons and other medical professionals have a tendency to be change adverse, therefore, a radical change in a tool that performs a given procedure or function may not be accepted as readily as would a tool that more closely emulates the current look, feel and procedure or function of the tool(s) currently in user.
One such attempt that improves over prior attempts to produce a combination hand held irrigation and suction tool is disclosed in commonly owned U.S. application Ser. No. 13/817,958, entitled “Hand Held Suction and Irrigation Tool” published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2013/0165849, the entirety of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein. The combination tool disclosed in the '958 application dramatically improves upon prior attempts because it preserves the ergonomics of past single function tools that either only provided suction or only provided irrigation but advantageously does so while providing both suction and irrigation. While the combination suction and irrigation tool is a vast improvement over prior attempts to produce such combination tools, improvements nonetheless remain desirable.
What is needed is an improved irrigation fluid delivery tool that also is well suited for use as a combination suction and irrigation tool.